Most priests know far more about marriage than most married people do

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Edward_H said:
A more eager apology, a nonroutine kiss, making dinner when I am not traveling, helping her to get to Confession, saying the Family Rosary at night, thanking her…a zillion ways to try to love her with the heart of Christ. Perhaps examining myself more closely in matters related to married or family life, and then confessing some shortfalls…that will help her get closer to Christ too.

And all this concern for her is time and effort that I won’t spend on self-pity, self focus.
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Priests can offer powerful reminders of all of this. Yet for at least some, it’s not necessary for these ideas to come from priests. For many Catholics – and for many non-Catholics – these are simply basic truths in a marriage. I’ve never had these discussions with a priest yet my husband and I practice these truths daily.
 
gracepoole said:
Priests can offer powerful reminders of all of this. Yet for at least some, it’s not necessary for these ideas to come from priests. For many Catholics – and for many non-Catholics – these are simply basic truths in a marriage. I’ve never had these discussions with a priest yet my husband and I practice these truths daily.
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Yes.

I’ve occasionally gotten “do something nice for people in your family!” as a penance, and there’s never been any sort of detail as to what exactly to do.

I feel like Edward_H’s priest is not typical of US confessors.
 
Think about it more crisply: You have as good a chance of accepting something as true that’s not, and something as not true that is true. So why bother.

It’s a dismal science indeed.
 
Even the ADHD pill pushers are re-thinking their approach to this problem…and they’re MDs.
 
Edward_H said:
Think about it more crisply: You have as good a chance of accepting something as true that’s not, and something as not true that is true. So why bother.
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Nah, because you can check to see if the result is being reproduced and check the sample sizes and go from there.

I do some (very minor) work for a psychologist who evaluates the mental functioning of accident victims for legal purposes, and I think you are underestimating the degree of scientific rigor of at least some areas of psychology.
Edward_H said:
Even the ADHD pill pushers are re-thinking their approach to this problem…and they’re MDs.
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You realize that psychologists don’t prescribe medication and use non-pharmaceutical methods?

Hence, it doesn’t make sense to blame psychologists for heavy medication use for ADHD–they’re on the other team.
 
Edward_H said:
You don’t have that many friends who share that much. Be honest.
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Yes, I do, and unless you’re a priest, which you must not be being married, you don’t know what they know or don’t know.
 
The thing is, when you need a psychologist or psychiatrist or neurologist, you need a psychologist/psychiatrist/neurologist.

–If you take your nonverbal autistic kid to a good priest, he’ll suggest doing conventional therapy, not some sort of special Catholic autism treatment (which I’m assuming/hoping doesn’t exist).
–Your priest doesn’t want to help you potty train your 4-year-old.
–If you have postpartum depression/postpartum psychosis, while your priest might provide some support and encouragement, he can’t fix it because that’s not his specialty.
–A priest isn’t going to have the sort of specialized knowledge of reminder systems that an ADHD specialist needs.
–A priest might have some helpful thoughts on scruples (especially if he has a specialty in it), but he shouldn’t be an OCD person’s only source of treatment.
–A priest can’t treat schizophrenia.
–If you have Alzheimer’s, your priest can’t fix that, either.

People need priests, but they need priests working in their particular specialty (spiritual and moral counsel), not encroaching into or replacing medicine, psychiatry or psychology.
 
Sorry…one can’t hide behind such dilettantish assertions of :",you can check to see if the result is being reproduced and check the sample sizes and go from there."

To someone who completed a Ph.D. I call BS on this sort of claim. It really doesn’t say anything concrete. The way to check reproducibility…is to reproduce the experiments.

The only thing that can be gleaned about reproducibility by reading the original research is to conclude that one couldn’t attempt to reproduce the work because of vague details on the protocol. Having details spelled out alone in addition doesn’t help determining whether one would get the same results.
 
Edward, you can call BS all you want, but that doesn’t make it BS. I have more theology education than most priests, but that doesn’t qualify me to do their job. A priest is not qualified to do the job of an MD or a psychologist.
 
Xantippe said:
People need priests, but they need priests working in their particular specialty (spiritual and moral counsel), not encroaching into or replacing medicine, psychiatry or psychology.
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Exactly! We all have our own place, our own destiny to fulfill.

If I’m depressed about my spiritual life, I’ll probably see a priest. If I’m depressed about my interactions with others, I’m going to see a psychologist or psychiatrist. And if I need medication, I’m going to take it.
 
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Edward_H said:
To someone who completed a Ph.D.
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Look, I’m a professor’s wife. I live in a faculty neighborhood. I can barely take the trash out without bumping into a person with a doctorate. My husband has two, my in-laws have one each. I have an MA.

A doctorate makes you an authority in your particular specialty. It does not make you an expert on everything.

Or more generally, smart is area specific. Being smart in one field or area of human knowledge does not being smart in all fields or all areas of human knowledge–you have to acquire a body of knowledge to be smart in a particular area. If you haven’t done that work, you’re not smart in that area, no matter how brilliant you may be elsewhere.

The fact that you think that psychology is a complete waste of time demonstrates that you don’t know enough about psychology to have an opinion on it.

Again, if 50% of results are not reproducible, that means that the other 50% are. That’s a decent start.
ConstantLearner said:
A priest is not qualified to do the job of an MD or a psychologist.
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Indeed.
 
Edward_H,

If psychology and psychiatry are complete bunk, who should be treating schizophrenics, new mothers with postpartum psychosis, people with bipolar, autistic people and people with OCD?

Are they all just supposed to throw away their meds, cancel their therapy appointments and go to confession instead?

I suspect the average US priest would be horrified at the suggestion.
 
I didn’t say psychiatry is complete bunk.

But with respect to psychology, most counseling psychology is today complete bunk. Subdomains of industrial psychology, training, perception, human memory and cognition are often fine. Social psychology is pretty much all bunk. A good bit of educational psychology is complete bunk.
 
Edward_H said:
I didn’t say psychiatry is complete bunk.

But with respect to psychology, most counseling psychology is today complete bunk. Subdomains of industrial psychology, training, perception, human memory and cognition are often fine. Social psychology is pretty much all bunk. A good bit of educational psychology is complete bunk.
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OK, that’s better.
 
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